Her Pregnancy Surprise. SUSAN MEIER
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He hadn’t wanted to talk about him, but once Danny slipped him into the conversation he hadn’t pretended he hadn’t. She had seen the sadness in his eyes and knew there was a story there. But she also recognized that this wasn’t the time to ask questions. She’d heard the rumor that Danny had gone through an ugly divorce but no report had mentioned a child from his failed marriage. Nasty divorces frequently resulted in child custody battles and his ex-wife could very well make him fight to see his son, which was undoubtedly why he didn’t want to talk about him.
But tonight wasn’t the night for probing into a past that probably only reminded him of unhappy times. Tonight, she had to figure out if he felt for her what she was beginning to feel for him. The last thing she wanted was to be one of those employees who got a crush on her boss and then pined for him for the rest of her career.
And she wouldn’t get any answers standing in his third floor office when he was downstairs!
She ran down the steps and found him in the great room, behind the bar, pouring Scotch into a glass.
He glanced up when she walked over. Though he seemed surprised she hadn’t gone to her room as he’d more or less ordered her to, he said, “Drink?”
Wanting to be sharp and alert so she didn’t misinterpret anything he said or did, Grace smiled and said, “No. Thanks.”
She slid onto one of the three red leather bar stools that matched the red leather sofas that sat parallel to each other in front of the wall of windows that provided a magnificent view of the Atlantic Ocean. A black, red and tan Oriental rug between the sofas protected the sand-colored hardwood floors. White-bowled lights connected to thin chrome poles suspended from the vaulted ceiling, illuminating the huge room.
Danny took a swallow of his Scotch, then set the glass on the bar. “Can’t sleep?”
She shrugged. “Still too keyed up from the weekend I guess.”
“What would you normally do on a Sunday night?”
She thought for a second, then laughed. “Probably play rummy with my mother. She’s a cardaholic. Loves any game. But she’s especially wicked with rummy.”
“Can’t beat her?”
“Every once in a while I get lucky. But when it comes to pure skill the woman is evilly blessed.”
Danny laughed. “My mother likes cards, too.”
Grace’s eyes lit. “Really? How good is she?”
“Exceptional.”
“We should get them together.”
Danny took a long breath, then said, “We should.”
And Grace suddenly saw it. The thing that had tickled her brain all weekend but had never really surfaced. In spite of her impoverished roots and his obviously privileged upbringing, she and Danny had a lot in common. Not childhood memories, but adult things like goals and commitments. He ran his family’s business. She was determined to help her parents out of poverty because she loved them. Even the way they viewed Orlando proved they had approximately the same beliefs about life and people.
If Danny hadn’t asked for her help this weekend, eventually they would have been alone together long enough to see that they clicked. They matched. She knew he realized it, too, if only because he’d nearly slipped into personal conversation with her four times at dinner, but he had stopped himself. Probably because she was an employee.
It was both of their loss if they weren’t mature enough to handle an office relationship. But she thought they were. Her difficult childhood and his difficult divorce had strengthened each of them. They weren’t flip. They were cautious. Smart. If any two people could have an office relationship without it affecting their work, she and Danny were the two. And she wasn’t going to miss out on something good because, as her boss, Danny wouldn’t be the first to make a move.
She raised her eyes until she caught his gaze. “You know what? Though you’re trying to fight it, I think you like me. Would it help if I told you I really like you, too?”
For several seconds, Danny didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He’d never met a woman so honest, so he wasn’t surprised that she spoke her mind. Even better, she hadn’t played coy and tried to pretend she didn’t see what was going on. She saw it, and she wanted to like him as much as he wanted to like her.
And that was the key. The final answer. She wanted to like him as much as he wanted to like her and he suddenly couldn’t understand why he was fighting it.
“It helps enormously.” He bent across the bar and kissed her, partly to make sure they were on the same page with their intentions, and partly to see if their chemistry was as strong as the emotions that seemed to ricochet between them.
It was. Just the slight brush of their lips knocked him for a loop. He felt the explosion the whole way to his toes.
She didn’t protest the kiss, so he took the few steps that brought him from behind the bar and in front of the stool on which she sat. He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her deeply this time, his mouth opening over hers.
White-hot desire slammed through him and his control began slipping. He wanted to touch her, to taste her, to feel all the things he’d denied himself for the past two years.
But it was one thing to kiss her. It was quite another to make love. But when he shifted away, Grace slid her hand around his neck and brought his lips back to hers.
Relief swamped him. He’d never had this kind of an all-consuming desire to make love. Yet, the yearning he felt wasn’t for sexual gratification. It was to be with Grace herself. She was sweet and fun and wonderful…and beautiful. Having her slide her arms around him and return his kisses with a passion equal to his own filled him with an emotion so strong and complete he dared not even try to name it.
Instead he broke the kiss, lifted her into his arms and took her to his bed.
The next morning when Grace awoke, she inhaled a long breath as she stretched. When her hand connected with warm, naked skin, her eyes popped open and she remembered she’d spent the night making love with her boss.
Reliving every detail, she blinked twice, waiting for a sense of embarrassment or maybe guilt. When none came she smiled. She couldn’t believe it, but it was true. She’d fallen in love with Danny Carson in about forty-eight hours.
She should feel foolish for tumbling in over her head so fast. She could even worry that he’d seen her feelings for him and taken advantage of her purely for sexual gratification. But she wasn’t anything but happy. Nobody had ever made love to her the way he had. And she was sure their feelings were equal.
She yawned and stretched, then went downstairs to the room she’d used on Friday and Saturday nights. After brushing her teeth and combing her hair, she ran back to Danny’s room and found he was still sleeping, so she slid into bed again.
Her movements caused Danny to stir. As Grace thanked her lucky stars that she had a chance to fix up a bit before he awoke, he turned on his pillow. Ready, she smiled and caught his gaze but the eyes that met hers were not the warm brown eyes of the man who had made love to her the night before. They were the dark, almost black eyes of her boss.
She remembered again the way he’d made love to her and told herself to stop being a worrying loser. Yes, the guy who ran Carson Services could sometimes be a real grouch, but the guy who lived in this beach house was much nicer. And she was absolutely positive that was the real Danny.
Holding his gaze, she whispered, “Good morning.”
He stared at her. After a few seconds, he closed his eyes. “Tell me we didn’t make a mistake.”
“We did not make a mistake.”
He opened his eyes. “Always an optimist.”
She scooted closer so she could rest